Natural History

At the age of thirteen Bentley Beetham became a boarder at the North Eastern County School; and soon after taking his place there he had joined the School’s Natural History Society . Through this involvement he developed a strong affinity with the natural environment and all that was contained within it. He soon saw photography as a natural extension of this interest, something that he would use in his adult years to great effect while studying the birds that nested on the cliffs of the North East coastline. A talent and dedication that he would expand within ornithology, one that would bring him recognition by, and a place alongside, the leading bird photographers of his day.

Beetham’s love of the natural world is apparent in many of his photgraphs contained in differing parts of his collection and by his large ornithilogical collection housed at the Hancock Museum in Newcastle upon tyne.